


To Fold the Sheet

by lyres



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship, M/M, Slice of Life, Summer Adventures Gone Awry, Tenderness, The Inherent Intimacy of Doing Chores Together
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-29
Updated: 2020-06-29
Packaged: 2021-03-03 18:36:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,966
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24980116
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lyres/pseuds/lyres
Summary: “Can you say one good thing about the season?”Holding out his soap-sud covered hands until Grantaire tosses a towel on top of them, Enjolras hums in thought. “Not really,” he says, once he's dried off. “Just don't have a lot of happy memories of summer, I suppose.”(In which Grantaire attempts to make Happy Summer Memories, and Enjolras is endlessly patient.)
Relationships: Enjolras/Grantaire (Les Misérables)
Comments: 19
Kudos: 127





	To Fold the Sheet

**Author's Note:**

  * For [gamefish](https://archiveofourown.org/users/gamefish/gifts).



Enjolras hates the summer. Grantaire has a long list of things that are worth knowing about Enjolras (that he can recite his favourite books by heart, that he is a good cook and a bad baker, that he's allergic to stone fruit, that he enjoys listening more than talking, that he's a cat person and a coffee snob) which he's had to learn by observation rather than ever having heard them stated out loud, because Enjolras doesn't have much of a concept of a “self”. In the philosophical sense, Grantaire is sure the idea exists in Enjolras's mind, it just... doesn't seem to occur to him to make it, like, _tangible_. Asked about his likes or dislikes, more often than not, Enjolras comes up short, as if the very idea that he might prefer one material or otherwise irrelevant thing over another is alien to him.

Grantaire doesn't mind putting in the work to learn in other ways. Observing Enjolras, after all, isn't exactly a hardship, and it's fun to ask the right questions once he does figure something out.

“So, hypothetically,” Grantaire says, and takes another plate from Enjolras to dry up, “if you lived in Australia, and July were like, a winter month, would it still be your least favourite month?”

Enjolras frowns a little. He puts unusual focus into chores, Grantaire's noticed that before, but he also flatters himself that Enjolras is giving the question genuine thought. “No, I don't think so,” he settles for in the end. “It's the heat I don't like, especially in the city. Just feels – I don't know, oppressive. Slows down my brain, and everything feels like it's rotting all the time.” He pulls a face. “Does that make any sense at all?”

It doesn't, but that's the fun part. Grantaire contemplates the mug he's handed. “Some people might say everything's more alive in the summer.”

“I don't like that,” says Enjolras, with a stubborn sort of decisiveness. “Bright green, and air you can cut with a knife, and bugs everywhere. Everything spoils faster when it's warm.”

“Is that _really_ it?” It may well be, because Enjolras has a veritable collection of sensory oddities Grantaire is still in the process of completing his catalogue of, but Enjolras is rarely so vehement about anything that concerns himself. He's talking himself into righteous territory the longer Grantaire asks about the summer thing – what's stranger, he seems to be oblivious that he's doing it. “Can you say one good thing about the season?”

Holding out his soap-sud covered hands until Grantaire tosses a towel on top of them, Enjolras hums in thought. “Not really,” he says, once he's dried off. “Just don't have a lot of happy memories of summer, I suppose.”

In retrospect, Grantaire thinks later, those particular words were an odd thing to spur him into action. They still do, though. In the moment, they are what makes him drop the matter and keep Enjolras more or less quiet company during his after-dinner-editing routine; in the long run, they are his justification for begging the car off Joly the weekend after and unceremoniously abducting his boyfriend.

“I wonder,” muses Enjolras, legs tucked under himself as he leans back in the passenger seat, “why in the world, a year in, you're still so determined to test my faith in you.”

“Okay, first of all, that's so not what this is about.” Speaking as someone who refuses to divulge their destination even an hour into the drive, Grantaire will happily own up to some measure of hypocrisy, here. “Secondly, if I'm testing anything, its both our faiths in this car. We're lucky to have gotten this far, actually.”

It's true – they're far beyond city limits, and the increasingly narrow streets are the sort that crack open over the large tree-roots which press up beneath them. The past ten minutes have been peppered with various unhappy noises from the engine. Next to him, Enjolras is resting his head against the window and looking outside, into the low light, with half-closed eyes. Summer tires him out by simple virtue of its existence: the warmer the day, the more begrudgingly accepting Enjolras becomes of the occasional afternoon nap. If Grantaire thinks about it any longer than half a second, he'll go out of his mind with fondness.

“I think you'll have to wake me when we get there,” murmurs Enjolras, and is tightening his jaw in a poorly suppressed yawn when Grantaire glances at him.

“Wake up,” says Grantaire, and turns the rattling car onto a sandy path off the road.

Enjolras stands in a field moments later, lit like a Turner painting by the evening gold, and Grantaire finds himself taxed with Enjolras's gentlest scowl of disapproval. “Grantaire,” he says evenly, “please tell me we didn't drive out of the city for an hour so you could feel young and free while stealing strawberries.”

“It's like you know me.” Grantaire blinks at the sun in an attempt to reorient himself. The field is ringed by trees and bushes, and on the edge furthest from them is what vaguely looks like a shed of some sort. Enjolras, who gave Grantaire a sardonic look once he saw through the Plan, is heading towards it with sudden determination.

As it turns out, Enjolras is as difficult to keep up with in harvesting as he is in a long list of other things (including but not limited to: essay writing, having faith in humanity, receiving job offers, getting fired from jobs due to Disagreements With Management, and tactical miniature war games). Far more than with the actual prospect of picking fruit, Grantaire had expected Enjolras to be enamoured with the concept of the thing: acres of fruit available in good faith, with scales, baskets, an unmanned till, and a pricing list all provided without supervision – it's a guerilla gardener's idea of heaven. Watching Enjolras go through a strawberry plant in twenty seconds and move on to the next only to present Grantaire with a full bucket thirty minutes in, Grantaire is dumbfounded.

“I did this a lot as a kid,” says Enjolras as they rinse off their yield with the hose provided. The less sand they drag into the apartment, the better, and it gives them a convenient opportunity to cool down. Grantaire shakes his dripping hair out like a dog and accepts Enjolras's cuff to the shoulder, along with the kiss brushed across his cheekbone, in retaliation. “My grandparents would take me. Some of us grew up picking our own fruit; I'm sure it's all new to _you_ , city boy.”

“Please don't mock me when I'm clearly trying to get over the heartbreak of not having given you a new memory,” says Grantaire with a dramatic hand to his chest. “What in the world was it about childhood strawberry-picking with your grandparents that wasn't happy?”

“It being a way to get me out of the house for my parents' arguments, mostly? And then the crowds, too, and the heat.” Enjolras wipes a hand across his forehead to brush away his own wet hair, and smiles. “Avoided a repeat performance of all three, this time. Thank you.”

He smiles the entire way home, tangling his fingers with Grantaire's to the detriment of Grantaire's driving style, and his gratitude is clearly earnest – only, Grantaire wasn't going for gratitude. Grantaire, as ever, was going for romanticism, and for making-things-better. He has a few years worth of goodwill on Enjolras's part to make up for, there. Gratitude, especially when it's as misguided as this, isn't good enough.

(The next morning, he finds Enjolras surrounded by pots and saucers in the kitchen, filling jam into empty tomato sauce jars. “Saved the foam for you,” he says, nodding to a saucer on the counter without looking up from his jam-work. “It's the best part.” Grantaire, then, considers himself somewhat reconciled with his first failure.)

The second attempt counts perhaps less as an abduction than the first, but feels, Grantaire thinks when they've been walking deeper into the woods for an hour, infinitely more sinister.

“Is it mushroom foraging?”

“Since when are you so impatient?” Grantaire turns around to see Enjolras give him a blank stare. Fine, the man was born impatient, but if he has to be aware of Grantaire's “Make Enjolras Enjoy Summer” scheme, he at least doesn't have to know every single one of its specifics. The element of surprise is integral to Grantaire's concept, thank you very much. “Okay, well, we're not foraging. Not _all_ my fun ideas are related to produce.”

“Worth an attempt. Ready to have me ask whether you're trying to make up for something with this yet?”

Grantaire sighs. Enjolras has an unreasonably fierce response to any hint at self-punishment on Grantaire's part, and is equally unhappy about the smallest sign of guilt. “No. I'm afraid I used up all my vulnerability when Jehan asked about Porthos this morning.”

“Ah, of course. The emotional labour inherent in talking about your cat.”

“I'll remind you that talking to Jehan about literally anything is deeply affecting, and that you consider Porthos a person to the point of routinely cooking full meals for him. Also, _please_ , for everything's sake, let a man woo when he wants to woo.”

He walks a few steps further, prepared to ramble on about something or other if that'll put Enjolras's mind to rest, but Enjolras's footsteps don't follow, and Grantaire stops.

When he turns, Enjolras's expression is a complicated thing caught halfway between pleased and bemused. Grantaire is struck by the sudden memory of when he'd first asked Enjolras out, terrifyingly earnest and fighting the desperate urge to escape into a joke. Enjolras had looked at him just like this, like he had never considered the possibility of something before and was somewhat taken aback by the unprecedented reality that presented itself. Back then, that look had made Grantaire pray for the ground to swallow him up.

“I don't need wooing,” says Enjolras. He sounds as he looks, not at all annoyed and all puzzled.

“I know.” Grantaire wipes some sweat off his brow. “You're positively resistant to it.”

“I.” Enjolras looks at the ground again. Slowly, resolve comes over his expression along with a small smile. “All right. Woo on.”

“Thank you.” Grantaire takes a bow, and Enjolras's hand in his.

They find the clearing when Grantaire is half sure he's gotten them irrevocably lost. The forest opens up, and Grantaire curses his eyes for cowards that are prepared to forget about the existence of sunlight at the first opportunity which the shade of trees provides. They sting from the double sunlight, harsh from above and mellow from where it's reflected in the pond, so he hears rather than sees Enjolras stop next to him and whisper “Oh.”

Grantaire feels, suddenly, overly aware of how much of a long shot this idea is. Legal, at least, which is more than what can be said for any of the alternative options, but a solid, what, seventy per cent of people probably hate swimming in ponds, right? He watches Enjolras walk out on the jetty and feels, for a moment, mildly terrified.

“So, look,” he says, dropping his bag and following, “I swear there's nothing evil in there. I know a pond in the middle of the woods is _supposed_ to be evil, like, by law, but I've been _in_ this one, and it's –”

All the air goes out of his lungs as Enjolras, whose strength is easily (and should under no circumstances be) underestimated, tackles him sideways and throws them both into the water. The cold shock of it is a welcome reprieve – it's an uncomfortable side-effect of being with Enjolras, feeling perpetually overwhelmed by affection. The occasional cold shower can't hurt.

Hopelessly, Grantaire brings a sopping wet sleeve across his face like it's going to do any good. “I hope you're happy to buy me a new phone.”

“You left it in the car,” says Enjolras smugly. He's swimming in place, his hair already stubbornly recovering from being doused. “Sorry. Just felt like it was my turn to be surprising.”

To congratulate him on his success, Grantaire throws himself against the drag of water into Enjolras, and they go under in a tangled splash.

Later, Enjolras floats on his back and looks upwards into the trees as Grantaire sits cross-legged on the jetty and wrings water from his shirt. “You know,” says Enjolras, louder than is necessary, because the water laps at his ears, “Courfeyrac used to take me swimming in the mornings.”

Grantaire groans. “ _Really_?”

Enjolras laughs. He moves, quick and easy, to swim towards Grantaire and rest his arms on the jetty's edge. “During our Erasmus. He thought I wasn't enjoying myself enough. I'm starting to see something of a pattern among my friends, there.”

“That's not how I mean it, though!” Grantaire shakes his head vehemently against Enjolras's inquisitive frown. Enjolras knows how to enjoy plenty of things, Grantaire is proud to have learned; he just doesn't enjoy a lot of the same things other people enjoy. Enjolras needs to be close to people from a distance, sometimes. Hell, the guy writes _letters_ to his friends. “Promise. Look, think of it as a selfish thing. Maybe the thought of you not having happy memories of what is undeniably the best of all four sesons is just unbearable to me.”

“All right,” says Enjolras with a small smile. He looks serene enough, now, with the sun in his half-dried hair. “So long as you don't feel like you have to compensate for anything.”

 _That's beside the point_ , thinks Grantaire, and leans forward to kiss him.

(He's pulled back into the water. In hindsight, he should have seen that one coming.)

Grantaire's third attempt involves a rooftop, a sunset, and, rather in defiance of the initial plan, an unholy number of bees. Enjolras's willpower, as proven by his consistent ability not to burst out laughing as he presses a bag of frozen peas against Grantaire's stung hand, is awe-inspiring.

“You know what the most ironic thing about this is?” Grantaire frowns down at the disaster. “Technically, this should be booked as my first success. Like, 'menaced by swarm of bees' is a new summer memory if there ever was one.”

Enjolras clears his throat. “Hm,” he says, unconvincingly.

“Enjolras.”

“I'm sorry!” There is a limit, as it turns out, to the most awe-inspiring of willpowers. Enjolras clears his throat and wipes his eyes once he's stopped laughing. “It's just, you know, kind of inevitable. When you regularly garden with Jehan, you will run from a swarm of bees at some point. It happens.”

Apparently it does. Attempt number three, as his most triumphant failure yet, is enough to fold Grantaire's ambitions for good.

(He never was a very determined person.)

“The worst part is, _I_ don't even mind much. I'll be fine, I won't have to default on rent or cut back on food if their payment comes through this late.” Enjolras is taking his frustration out on the dishes. A mug clatters in protest back into the soapy water. “But if they're doing it to me, they're probably doing it to everyone, even though submissions like these are some people's only income. The whole thing's like a thinly veiled attempt to run independent journalism as a whole into the ground.”

“Easier than re-introducing censorship,” admits Grantaire, who knows better than to suggest Enjolras try for another full-time position with a newspaper.

“It's just so frustrating. You go from one job to the next hoping they'll do better, and nothing ever changes.” Enjolras stops, like he's remembering something, and frowns. “Sorry – I'm not being great company, am I?”

It's the hottest day of the year. Grantaire observed Enjolras going from grumpy to furious and back around all morning, and returned in the evening to find him still in the same cycle. “You're being perfectly unobjectionable. Can't say the same for your employers.”

Enjolras makes a brief, unhappy noise, but resumes his task. “Still. I can't wait for it to get colder, at least then my brain will be back to normal.”

“Sorry I couldn't reconcile you with summer.”

That earns him a smile. “I'm not sorry you tried, even if you were really up against it. Very interesting, seeing _you_ on a quixotic quest for once.”

“I think I, uh, might have been trying to make up for something.” Grantaire winces when Enjolras looks at him, sharply. “A little bit? No idea why I zeroed in on it so much, I just – we didn't start out as the best of friends, you know, and it feels like all our best stories are about – other people. Sometimes. We've known each other for so long, and on the grand total I still feel like all I've done is give you a hard time. I guess I wanted something nice to be – ours. Sort of.”

Enjolras's gaze feels like light through a magnifying glass. Grantaire considers the likelihood of spontaneous incineration until Enjolras, looking down, leans over and drops a kiss on his shoulder. “You know,” he says softly, “I've never done this with anyone else.” He hands Grantaire a dinner plate to dry.

“Emotional unburdenings after dinner?”, jokes Grantaire weakly.

Enjolras smiles – a small, private thing. “The washing-up,” he says.

The simplicity of it strikes Grantaire in a place he didn't know was already tender. It nicks something in his core, and for a moment, he doesn't quite know where to look. Enjolras leans against him, just a little, their arms touching as Grantaire goes back to drying plates. “That's good enough,” Grantaire says, after far too much time has passed, in a voice that's embarrassingly uneven.

(It's more than good enough.)

**Author's Note:**

> From Notes from Walnut Tree Farm by Roger Deakin: "I need someone to fold the sheet, someone to take the other end of the sheet and walk towards me and fold once, then step back, fold and walk towards me again. We all need someone to fold the sheet. Someone to hitch on the coat at the neck. Someone to put on the kettle. Someone to dry up while I wash." 
> 
> Written for [gamefish](https://archiveofourown.org/users/gamefish), who requested ExR fluff as part of a fundraiser. Thank you so much for your request (and your patience; I'm sorry this took me a while)!


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